You -- and you know who you are -- need not apply

I've always looked at it like this: Sometimes the best person for the job isn't the one who reports or writes the best.

 

Gee, I really wish you were the sports editor of the Plain-Dealer. I promise you I can't write the best.

 

If you're saying there are other factors, I agree with you. If you're saying hire a minority to meet some quota or to avoid a lawsuit, that's where I leave off.

 

Unfortunately, silentbob, sometimes the decision is made on who is least likely to move on rapidly, who is least likely to leapfrog the hiring editor for a promotion or who makes the best drinking buddy, none of which matters to the readers or makes the product better.

 

I haven't read this entire thread, but ... would this newspaper be a large Gannett-owned daily in a medium-sized Midwestern city with a big traffic circle in the middle that tends to host big NCAA Tournament basketball games?

Their second columnist position has been open for years ... ever since an African-American who bordered on unreadable left, and the only African-American they could find since (after the job had been open for more than a year) falsified his resume and was let go.

I have had reporters tell me that jobs I had applied for at their newspapers (not the one mentioned above) were slotted for minorities/females. Interestingly, every woman I worked with at my college newspaper that got into the sports biz ended up at a large paper or in a pretty high-profile gig pretty quickly. A few of the guys stayed in, but most left the biz full-time.

Because of that, women and minorities get fast-tracked to pretty good gigs, but they don't necessarily get much OJT at smaller shops, and some get in way over their heads as a result. When I was an SE at a 10K daily, I was told my my pub to consider a woman for our staff sportswriter position. Every time it was open, no women (or minorities) applied -- because any woman/minority in the biz wasn't looking for an entry-level gig at a 10K paper.

It is a numbers game. There are very few women or minorities in sports journalism, so it's easy for them to move up because larger papers (especially in a large chain whose name rhymes with Annett) want to fill diversity quotas. The white guys have to prove their mettle. It's difficult. I understand that the shoe was on the other foot and we had a significant advantage for a long time, and I also understand that we need to represent our communities, so our sob stories aren't going to be heard, but it's hard to move up. So, a lot of us throw up our hands, give up and move on to different careers.

 

Could you be more specific? Is it bigger than a breadbox?

 

Oh god, spare me. :

Women have to work twice as hard to "prove" themselves in any male-dominated industry. Including this one.

I'm sick of the white-male, sob-story bullshit. It gets old. There will be very, very few cases in your life where you, specificially, were overqualified for a job that went to a minority applicant because of a quota. If you don't get a job, there's probably a dozen reasons why not -- most of them that don't have a damn to do with anybody else. Get over it.

You know what we (white males) have to "prove"? That we're any different from the thousands of other twenty-something, white, male, clean-cut, khaki-and-polo, college-paper SEs who are applying for the same jobs all over the country. Because you're all the damn same, and most of you don't stand out. THAT's why you get passed over all the time.

Make yourself stand out and you won't have a sob story anymore.

 

Female sportswriters whom I worked with at a very well-respected J-school in college were working for major metros within two years of graduating. They were good, but not out-of-this-world good.

Meanwhile, nearly all of my male counterparts (I won't put myself in that boat ... I was a hack who worked my @$$ off, but was never that great) who were outstanding reporters/writers (and stronger than the females who got major metro jobs) got stuck at small dailies and never could move on. Nearly all of them have given up and left the biz.

Biases in hiring in race and gender were wrong 50 years ago when it was minorities and women being discriminated against. And, just because the shoe is on the other foot doesn't make biases in hiring less wrong. I would've complained if newspapers were discriminating against minorities and women in sports positions. Discrimination by any name is discrimination, whether you call it racism or affirmative action. And it's wrong. The best person should be hired for a job. Period.

 

I have no doubt that some good people slip through the cracks, for whatever reason. That's a given, and it happens everywhere. But "outstanding" people very rarely slip through the cracks -- if "nearly all" of your counterparts "got stuck at small dailies" to the point where they gave up and left the biz, it seems to me that blaming the system for failing to recognize and/or reward their "outstanding" talent is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. It's not like there are no opportunities out there, or that white males aren't getting jobs. In the departments where I've worked, I'd estimate that a good 85 percent of the openings were filled by white males (when they were filled at all.)

Like I said, there are a lot of reasons that people don't get a job, or advance in their profession. Most of those reasons can be found by taking an honest look in the mirror.

I think we can all agree on that.

 

I'm not talking about a white guy losing out to a minority or female applicant, when they all have been considered for a position. I started this thread because a major newspaper cordoned off the whole process from the get-go, making it clear (on the QT to a couple of staffers, who then shared that word with potential applicants) that only minorities would be considered.

That, to me, is the real offense. No one likes token interviews, but at least you might say or show something that leads to an opportunity down the road. But telling an entire demographic that it needn't bother applying or, if someone does, has no shot at a call or an interview is just pigheaded bad. If you considered only white males or only females or only minorities, it would be equally bad. And you never would know if you hired the best available person or not.

Only consolation is, the best people wouldn't want to work for such bonehead bosses.

 

so, did they fill the spot, Joe? I'm just curious.
Because it seems like we're all losing out to a shitty economy more than anything.

 

I blame the man.